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Sunday, 13 January 2013

Frugal Fabric Friday - pause this week

There's a pause in the Frugal Fabric Friday posts as I have been quite ill with sinusitis.
I'm mostly recovered but rather than pressure myself in trying to catch up, I recalled that my target was 40 FFF posts during 2013, so this is one of the 12 or so weeks I get to give myself a pass card. I hope you are all OK with that.

There will hopefully be no 2 on Friday, though I'm not quite sure what it is going to be yet, although I am sure inspiration will arrive at some point during the week.

I put away a large basket of clean laundry today and was a little surprised to discover that one of my SWAP knit tops has already had a laundry disaster, shrinking in length by a huge amount, and now being comically cropped!
Before washing. Shoulder to back hem - 26"

In the picture below, hanging behind it is another top the same size/style etc to give an idea just how much it has shrunk! Shoulder to back hem now 20" (was 26") - shrunk by 23%

Not quite sure what I am going to do about that......

I do have some fabric left over, so guess that needs to get laundered as well - and no I had not prewashed it (and clearly should've), and it was cheap from the local roll end shop, so unknown fibre content though feels like cotton and elastane to me.
I also discovered that I have left a pin inside the serged up collar which is now sticking through the fabric, so not one of my best attempts!

As its about 6 inches shorter than it was, it now has 3/4 length sleeves, but I guess I could recut it and use the (prewashed) remnants to make another new top.
I wonder what will happen to the other things I've made from unprewashed fabric? Ooops!

Oh no. Poor little top. If its not too short to do it, can you put some ribbing on the bottom of it so its sort of sweatshirt-y. You could do ribbing on the cuffs too just to make it look deliberate. I have navy ribbing if you need some... its the real stuff that I had shipped from the US, and has really good recovery. If you want it, just let me know how much you need.

Woa ! First prize for the most amount of shrinkage ever . I agree with Jenni - has it only shrunk lengthwise then a contrast band in navy or even red might be good - a version of colour blocking. Did you make other garments out of this same fabric ?

Sorry to hear of this mishap. A good lesson to always preshrink your fabric. I agree with Rhonda - you can add a wide band at the bottom of the back, front and sleeves. The bands would look cool if cut so the stripes run vertically. I hope you can save your top somehow. And I hope you feel better soon!